


you are the best thing (that's ever been mine)

by timelesslords



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Annabeth Chase has abandonment issues, F/M, First Fight, Kissing in the Rain, Miscommunication, One Shot, Percy Jackson is Good Boyfriend, Post-The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson), Pre-The Lost Hero (Heroes of Olympus), Song: Mine (Taylor Swift), i think I'm probably physically incapable of writing a percabeth breakup lmao, it's about the rain your honor, set between PJO and HOO, they do not break up don't worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29828385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelesslords/pseuds/timelesslords
Summary: So was this how it was going to end? Her crying and him scared of her, or scared of ending things with her, it was the same difference. That was in character for him at least, being scared of hurting her. He would do it anyways though, if he thought it was the right thing to do, because he always did the right thing in a very infuriating way that she had never been capable of.***Or, Annabeth and Percy have their first real fight.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 91





	you are the best thing (that's ever been mine)

Annabeth slammed the door shut behind her. 

Maybe she should have been quieter, considering it was 2:30 in the morning, but Percy’s neighbors had already heard them yell at each other for ten minutes, so not waking anyone up was probably a lost cause. She yanked open the door to the stairwell, barely even thinking as she rushed down the actual steps. It was a dumb argument, _had been_ a dumb argument anyways, and then it spiralled out of control and suddenly he was asking her what she even wanted because he couldn’t tell, and she was saying _I don’t know, but not this_ and slamming the door in his face. 

And wasn’t that just the story of her life? Things would be great and then fine and then bad, and eventually it would all blow up in her face in a really spectacularly bad way. She could never keep a grip on anything, never be good enough to make people stay. Not her dad, not Luke, not Thalia. Apparently not even Percy, and that one stung the most. Because she’d let herself really believe that things would work out, but she’d fucked it all up just the same. 

Annabeth burst through the front door of his apartment building, somehow getting half a block away before her brain even computed that it was pouring rain. Her coat was still in Percy’s room, not that it mattered now. 

“Annabeth!” 

She was so lost in her own thoughts that she almost didn’t hear him, but he called her name again, closer now, and then someone touched her shoulder. Annabeth turned around, fully expecting him to be dry, but he was soaked to the bone the same as she was. Water dripped down his hair into his eyes. He hadn’t bothered to put on a coat, and his orange camp t-shirt was already two shades darker than normal from the rain. 

More surprising than that was the look on his face. Not angry, not frustrated. Not even surprised like she’d left him. He was scared. 

It wasn’t an expression she saw often out of him, but she knew it well enough all the same. It was one of the only emotions he ever tried to hide, but the clench of his jaw and the slight widening of his eyes always gave him away. His hands were shaking a little by his side. His hands never shook. 

So was this how it was going to end? Her crying and him scared of her, or scared of ending things with her, it was the same difference. That was in character for him at least, being scared of hurting her. He would do it anyways though, if he thought it was the right thing to do, because he always did the right thing in a very infuriating way that she had never been capable of. 

Maybe they had always been bad for each other. Maybe they had a little too much of their parents in them to work out. Annabeth certainly felt like her mother right now; not sure why anyone even bothered with these types of things when they always ended like this.

“If you’re going to break up with me just get it over with.” Annabeth said. She’d been hoping that the rain would be enough to hide the fact that she was crying, but the thickness of her voice gave it away anyways. 

A little flicker of confusion ran across his face. 

“Did you not… just break up with me?” he asked. 

Annabeth couldn’t summon the right words. She supposed that she sort of had, not meaning to exactly, but he was the one who asked the question in the first place; so angry and frustrated that she’d just told him what he had wanted to hear. 

Except, judging from the look on his face now, that had not been what he wanted to hear at all. 

“I don’t know.” 

It was a wonder he could even hear her above the rain, which was hitting the pavement and the buildings and the street in nothing short of a thundering rush. He really was soaked to the bone. It was such an unfamiliar sight that she found herself cataloguing little details: how droplets of water clung to his eyelashes, how different his hair looked wet, how his shirt was stuck to his skin. 

“Do you want to break up with me?” He asked cautiously. Rain was streaking down his face in little rivulets, though his voice sounded too clear for him to be crying. 

Annabeth’s head hurt, and not just because it was an ungodly hour and she could already feel herself getting a cold from the rain. None of this made any sense. None of it was _logical_. This was not how things were supposed to go, how things had always gone.

“I thought you wanted to break up with me.” Annabeth said, suddenly feeling very unsure. 

“Why would I want to break up with you?” Now he sounded really confused, running a hand through his wet hair for good measure. The rain pulled it back into place the second he took his hand away. 

“Because, I just I just blew everything up, like I always do.” Annabeth said, unable to understand what he didn’t understand, because it was very obvious from her point of view, “I thought you came out here to finish it off.” 

He stared at her, completely bewildered. 

“I came out here to apologize.” 

Annabeth felt like her brain was short circuiting.

“Why would you be apologizing?” 

If anyone should be apologizing it was her. She didn’t even know who started the fight, but she’d been the most on edge lately, a ticking time bomb of stress. She’d certainly escalated it, and her words had effectively ended it, in the worst way possible.

“Because we had a fight,” Percy said, slowly, as if she were— well, not stupid exactly, but not understanding him either, “And I said hurtful things and I didn’t mean to— to let it go that far.” 

“But I—” Annabeth didn’t even know how to finish her sentence. It was only now starting to sink in that he really did not intend on ending things with her. The thought was so foreign to what she was used to but also so fucking typical for Percy. She almost felt dumb for thinking it in the first place, except for that little flicker of doubt that still lingered in her chest.

He just looked at her patiently, waiting for her to finish her thought. 

Something in her seemed to snap. 

“I’m sorry.” she said. She was claimed by a sudden urgency to explain everything while he was still standing there and she still had the chance, and the words tumbled out of her mouth quicker than she was even thinking them “I swear I didn’t mean it, it just came out and I don’t know why I said that, please don’t go—”

Before she could even finish he closed the space between them and she met him halfway. She barely registered her hands on his chest and his on her face before she was kissing him. He tasted like rain and chapstick and she clung to his wet shirt desperately, afraid to let him go. 

He pulled back first, still holding her face in his hands, and it suddenly registered to Annabeth that _he_ was afraid to let her go too. Which, after she had bolted during their argument, was probably fair of him, though why she had even run in the first place was lost to her, like it had been a totally different person. 

“I’m sorry.” Annabeth said again, because it was worth repeating when she felt it so strongly, “I shouldn’t have gotten so mad, and I shouldn’t have run away.” 

He smiled at that, though Annabeth couldn’t tell what he found nice about it. She didn’t care though. 

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and it’s going to take a lot more than a stupid argument and some rain to shake me off.” he said, so sincerely that he might as well have sworn it on the Styx.

The little sliver of doubt that had been lurking in Annabeth’s chest suddenly melted away. 

“I think it's more than a little rain. You’re soaked.” Annabeth said, letting herself laugh a little as she watched him realize that he was uncharacteristically not dry. 

“I got distracted.” he said, with a little frown, “And you’re freezing.” 

Annabeth was, in fact, very cold. The rain had thoroughly covered every inch of her, arms, hair, shirt and shoes. 

“Can I… come back with you?” she asked, cautiously, because she was technically supposed to be at her dorm right now and he was supposed to be asleep. Percy just looked at her like she was crazy. 

“Well I’m not about to let you walk eight more blocks to your dorm without a coat, so yeah.” 

“Okay.” Annabeth said. Her voice seemed small, and she was suddenly feeling very overwhelmed and more than a little tired, “I just thought you might… I don’t know.” 

“I’ll never leave you alone, Wise Girl.” he said, tucking an arm around her shoulders to ward off the rain. “So you should probably stop trying so hard to get rid of me.” 

She probably should have come up with a witty retort to that, called him Seaweed Brain and told him something about being clingy, but she didn’t have it in her. Instead she leaned into his touch, let the rain wash over her, and believed every word he said. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm doing a trope bingo, so get ready for even more tropey one shots from me lol! This one was "Romantic Rain" so I really tried to highlight the uh, rain of it all haha.


End file.
